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The Evil Within - PAX East Demo Impressions
- Thread starter Miles Quaritch
- Start date
bananafactory
Banned
Nothing is necessary, but I found it humorous and it's related to this game. If this was the wrong place to post it then that's my bad, I didn't see an official thread for the game.
SOME-MIST
Member
the onion is an awesome source of satirical news and I actually got a laugh out of it. they're also part of the a/v club which is one of my favorite Chicago sources for indie flicks around the city.
people do typically get pretty angry when they get "got" though.
UpperCaseN
Member
Negaton? Did someone already say that? I'm a few days late
Polioliolio
Member
Trying not to look at too much, since I'm interested and hate spoilers, but it seems the biggest backlash is because the protagonist doesn't Nathan Drake everything around him.
... So what you're telling me is that I have a static and quiet player character the likes of classic horror games... I'm gonna say that's good.
... So what you're telling me is that I have a static and quiet player character the likes of classic horror games... I'm gonna say that's good.
DirtyLarry
Member
I agree but with a 3rd person shooter it is a definite balancing act.
I would rather form my own reaction to what is happening, but seeing the entirety of the character makes this hard to pull off.
Still though I agree. I do however recognize it is sometimes easier said than done.
PapaEmeritus
Member
Figured it would be like this.
I specifically asked the attendant if it was a playable demo to which she said no it's a played , hand-off demo. To which I replied, so they will try to show the best possible thing to hype the game, ala Aliens from Pax 2 years ago, also hands-off. She said, "I can say that, but yes, haha". So I said well thanks for your honesty and continued on my way.
I specifically asked the attendant if it was a playable demo to which she said no it's a played , hand-off demo. To which I replied, so they will try to show the best possible thing to hype the game, ala Aliens from Pax 2 years ago, also hands-off. She said, "I can say that, but yes, haha". So I said well thanks for your honesty and continued on my way.
As someone posted, the IGN scoop live panel tore the game apart. They keep bringing up the fact that the character has "no thoughts"" or "emotions" about what is going on around him.
http://www.ign.com/videos/2014/04/16/game-scoop-episode-2995-live-from-pax-east
(Doesn't happen till 17:20 ish or 46:26 remaining at the bottom right bar).
http://www.ign.com/videos/2014/04/16/game-scoop-episode-2995-live-from-pax-east
(Doesn't happen till 17:20 ish or 46:26 remaining at the bottom right bar).
I loved Shadows of The Damned except the Big Boner sections.
IGN are pathetic at best.
YuriLowell
Member
What a crock of shit, I don't need someone cracking jokes every twenty seconds.
GhostTrick
Banned
What I found pityfull is that we're getting previews of a livestage demo. This is stupid at best. Next what ? Review based on screenshots ? I mean, you can have an opinion on a trailer or a gameplay video. But don't make it like it's facts, such as claiming the game is uninspired or is too easy.
Constant self- monologues are one thing i hate about modern AAA games.
Just the constant "stating the obvious" blabber.. even great games like Uncharted and Last of Us (to a lesser extent) are guilty of this.
Risk Breaker
Member
"OH CRAP" "OH NO" "OH SHIT" "OH MY GOD" every 3 minutes is now considered expressing thoughts or emotions.
"Oh my god.. the city... is collapsing!" "such destruction.." "You have got to be kidding me!" "Oh no, more monsters!" "Oh God! It's eating his face!" etc etc.
Maybe it's commentary for the visually impaired.
hey_it's_that_dog
benevolent sexism
IMO, this is basically like criticizing a movie for not using the soundtrack to hammer home every emotion the characters feel.
Terrible_Majesty
Member
im going to wait for GAF's impressions of the full retail release. I've liked every Mikami game. Survival horror isnt understood by most people nowadays. See ZombiU.
Mikami wouldn't be the first Japanese dev that stumbled on the path of bringing their PS2 era game design to the HD consoles. RE5 and 6 demonstrate that simply aping the mechanics of RE4 aren't enough to make a game great. TEW as previewed seems to have some serious flaws; but I don't care much for modern game criticism, and when I read stuff like, "the character seems lifeless," I tune it out. Who gives a shit? Isaac Clarke doesn't say boo for an entire game and he headlines the best survival horror experience of the last 5 years.
Messofanego
Banned
"If anything, The Evil Within is a homage to barbed wire. I, myself, have many friends that use barbed wire." lol
Ingueferroque
Banned
Do people really need the main character to speak constantly?
hey_it's_that_dog
benevolent sexism
All good points.
However, the sounds of Isaac screaming inside his helmet during various actions was some god-tier sound design IMO, and might make up a lot of the difference between "lifeless" and awesome.
I hadn't thought about it until your post. I was imagining Lara Croft constantly whimpering and cringing in response to the world being IGN's ideal situation, and I fully agree that we don't need that in every game (and maybe not in any game). But the way Isaac's emotionality was realized was pretty damn good. Not sure if that would work as well for a character with a visible face and no headwear.
"Oh my god did you see that blood that was so scaaaryyyy."
"WHat!? his head is like inside a safe!"
"Hiding in this locker from chainsaw guy is SOOOOO tense, bro."
cracking jokes =/= a character with some actual character.
i agree with them tbh. long gone are the days of silent protagonists being good enough in a game that strives to be immersive and cinematic which is exactly what evil within in trying for.
i don't need them to be wise cracking smart asses like drake (although it fits within the indiana jones template) but i would like them to feel...you know...human. a bit of shock or surprise or just a comment on the situation they're in like joel does, hell, anything. ND are really smart with it, and granted, no-one else seems to have gotten it right quite like them, but jesus, they could at least try.
it's a smart way to incorporate narrative into gameplay too. for this game to be devoid of it, despite what's going on just doesnt cut it in this day and age of gaming and story telling. but tbh. it's the least of the games worries. animation looks like it needs to be started from scratch becasue it's awful. that's a bigger deal right now for me...the way it moves.
My problem with the PAX East demo when I saw it last weekend is that it was just us watching a dude play through a live demo and nobody talked or said anything during it. Usually when I see demos like this, there is one person playing and another describing what's going on. What cool systems are there? Why should be excited about what I am seeing? It basically was him moving place to place shooting things and I had no context about why that might be exciting.
Now, the flip side of that is that if I had been playing it myself, I doubt I would have been much more excited because it was pretty plain.
Now, the flip side of that is that if I had been playing it myself, I doubt I would have been much more excited because it was pretty plain.
StarCreator
Member
Honestly, my biggest problem with the demo was the protagonist's facial expression never changing. Animations like turning the crank or opening doors made it really obvious, and I felt some facial animation for actions like those would go a long way.
I came in knowing nothing about the game and didn't leave disappointed. My friends who caught the demo a couple days later concurred. Not really seeing what was so bad about the game.
I came in knowing nothing about the game and didn't leave disappointed. My friends who caught the demo a couple days later concurred. Not really seeing what was so bad about the game.
i agree with you about Isaac Clarke's screaming. A good silent protagonist needs memorable grunts. Zelda has always done a good job.
Messofanego
Banned
This is honestly the best part of Dead Space 2
Perfectly ties into the player's frustrations after a hard fight.
I had my doubts upon reading the lead programmer tweets, but now there's some truth in them.
IdTech 5, or it's Virtual Texturing tech, is unorthodox to work with, add to that the language barrier some of the programmers at Tango had in the beginning(skype meetings are in English, engine documentation is in English, ...) because it's not a licensed engine.
The penultimate proof of this is the framerate of every in-game footage of TEW shown. Low framerate doesn't exactly indicate mastery of the idtech5's rendering pipeline.
And these are I assume milestone demos that Bethesda demands of Tango Gameworks on a regular basis.
We can all agree the textures and materials don't look very sharp, even for a 360/PS3 game.
For example, even PC Rage players had to wait for a patch to set the maximal quality settings, or create custom cfg files to tweak the texturing aspect:
http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/how-to-unlock-rages-high-resolution-textures-with-a-few-simple-tweaks
The "Large" texture cache option actually makes the game crash unless you have a GPU with 1GB+ VRAM.
Anyway, it's hard to judge a game without having played it. I'm sure the framerate issues will be figured out.
IdTech 5, or it's Virtual Texturing tech, is unorthodox to work with, add to that the language barrier some of the programmers at Tango had in the beginning(skype meetings are in English, engine documentation is in English, ...) because it's not a licensed engine.
The penultimate proof of this is the framerate of every in-game footage of TEW shown. Low framerate doesn't exactly indicate mastery of the idtech5's rendering pipeline.
And these are I assume milestone demos that Bethesda demands of Tango Gameworks on a regular basis.
We can all agree the textures and materials don't look very sharp, even for a 360/PS3 game.
For example, even PC Rage players had to wait for a patch to set the maximal quality settings, or create custom cfg files to tweak the texturing aspect:
http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/how-to-unlock-rages-high-resolution-textures-with-a-few-simple-tweaks
The "Large" texture cache option actually makes the game crash unless you have a GPU with 1GB+ VRAM.
Anyway, it's hard to judge a game without having played it. I'm sure the framerate issues will be figured out.
Oldschoolgamer
The physical form of blasphemy
Visceral probably did it better than anyone else, when it comes to horror, via Dead Space 2 and Dead Space 1...
In Dead Space 1, the ending with him reacting to the reveal held more weight than the vast majority of characters reacting to everything in other games.
In Dead Space 2, Clarke doesn't say or do shit outside of cutscenes (which are of the HL variety mainly) and scripted events, which is how it should be. He doesn't need to react every single time a necromorph jumps out of a vent, or when he sees some crazy shit: that's up to the players. That's as bad as horror movies abusing sound to let the audience know how to feel (which is something DS 1 did terribly). Hell, it makes less sense for the characters to talk in horror (in DS2, Ellie basically tells Stross to STFU), due to them being hunted by shit that can track them anywhere.
Good horror movies don't even do that bullshit.
RicoTheMad
Banned
I'm with the folks that don't need their character whimpering every time something moves or makes a sound.
Silent Hill 2 for example was an amazing game. Didn't have that.
Good sound and music, atmosphere, gameplay, an interesting plot, these are the things I really look for in a linear horror game. The one thing I'm afraid of is that they've fallen into the old trap of too much action in a horror game.
I'm probably gonna wait it out and see what I think once there's some actual hands on from people whose opinions I trust.
Silent Hill 2 for example was an amazing game. Didn't have that.
Good sound and music, atmosphere, gameplay, an interesting plot, these are the things I really look for in a linear horror game. The one thing I'm afraid of is that they've fallen into the old trap of too much action in a horror game.
I'm probably gonna wait it out and see what I think once there's some actual hands on from people whose opinions I trust.
Bayonettasbuddy
Neo Member
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
Dead Space 2 nailed how much talking a protagonist should do.
It made sense for Isaac in DS1 to not talk much, but not talking at all was weird. I felt much more connected to Isaac in DS2.
It made sense for Isaac in DS1 to not talk much, but not talking at all was weird. I felt much more connected to Isaac in DS2.
Silent hill 2 did do that, it just took away control while it did it. You pressed a button to "activate" it. But james talked about stuff all the time, vocally or via on screen text "thoughts". Same goes for resident evil when you examined a bookcase "various books and documents, nothing of use"
The difference now is that gaming, while remaining in our control, is more contextual, more free flowing. If silent hill 2 was made now james would say those things when he approached or saw them. You wouldn't have to activate it via a button. Or watch a pointless slow pan of a destroyed road while he said something along the lines of "what's happened here, the road is gone". It would be done on the fly, as you played, and it would be better for it imo. And it sounds like it is exactly that which is missing from the evil within.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
I was the exact opposite. Mute Isaac from DS1 had me connect to the atmosphere and his journey far better than talky, narrative driven Isaac in DS2.
"God's Beard!"
Member
Finally someone else realizes this game seems bad. Thought I was going crazy for a second.
ChawlieTheFair
pip pip cheerio you slags!
Can't watch right now, but did they all play it? Or is it just the original guy who wrote the article, and they are swinging to his opinion?
They watched the demo, not hands on. I was baffled that the article said that the game has failed horror, while he hasn't played it. I mean the game could end up outright terrible, but saying some things like that before playing it is a risky overreaction.
Black Soma
Member
New Mikami interview on Famitsu. Anything interesting?
http://www.famitsu.com/news/201404/24050818.html
Also TEW was in the latest issue of Dengeki. Unfortunately it doesn't seem they have released any of the new screens.
http://dengekionline.com/elem/000/000/843/843482/
http://www.famitsu.com/news/201404/24050818.html
Also TEW was in the latest issue of Dengeki. Unfortunately it doesn't seem they have released any of the new screens.
http://dengekionline.com/elem/000/000/843/843482/
-MD-
Member
New Mikami interview on Famitsu. Anything interesting?
http://www.famitsu.com/news/201404/24050818.html
Would like to see what he has to say, been aching for some new info.
Tidus_Great
Banned
Lord Mikami never fails. Play Vanquish. Nuff said. no gameplay even comes close.
Mr.Monitor
Member
Yeah, when I went to PAX seeing the Evil Within was one of the main things I wanted to do, but when I started hearing that the demo looked like garbage I just decided not to go. I figured disappointment on that scale would just kill my PAX vibe and it would be a waste of time.
So I guess Routine is the last hope for true survival horror games, huh? I don't want to be doomed to a future of fucking walking simulators disguised as "horror" games.
Edit: I will say though, I don't like how the media is complaining about how the main character doesn't react to anything. I think the constant unnecessary exposition modern games use in place of actually making the player feel something is absolute bullshit, and needs to stop. I'd rather have a silent protag than one who runs around telling me how I should feel.
If that's the case, perhaps there's still hope. I don't doubt that the gameplay will at least be fun. Mikami knows what he's doing there.
I'd say that's a little different from what people are asking for, though. It sounds like what they want is a character who reacts to things with plainly expressed thoughts and feelings, while the on screen text was usually just information with the occasional subtle insight scattered throughout. I feel like that's how it is in a lot of older survival horror games; it's rare that the main characters explicitly expand upon what's going on around them or how they feel. To use Silent Hill 2 as an example again, I can't recall a single moment in game where James expresses fear. Discomfort, maybe. But pure fear?
Still, moments like
were better off without James running around "reacting," it lets the player savor the things happening around them and make conclusions for themselves. Same with Silent Hill 3 in the
Perfect.
So I guess Routine is the last hope for true survival horror games, huh? I don't want to be doomed to a future of fucking walking simulators disguised as "horror" games.
Edit: I will say though, I don't like how the media is complaining about how the main character doesn't react to anything. I think the constant unnecessary exposition modern games use in place of actually making the player feel something is absolute bullshit, and needs to stop. I'd rather have a silent protag than one who runs around telling me how I should feel.
If that's the case, perhaps there's still hope. I don't doubt that the gameplay will at least be fun. Mikami knows what he's doing there.
I'd say that's a little different from what people are asking for, though. It sounds like what they want is a character who reacts to things with plainly expressed thoughts and feelings, while the on screen text was usually just information with the occasional subtle insight scattered throughout. I feel like that's how it is in a lot of older survival horror games; it's rare that the main characters explicitly expand upon what's going on around them or how they feel. To use Silent Hill 2 as an example again, I can't recall a single moment in game where James expresses fear. Discomfort, maybe. But pure fear?
You could argue that this ties into the game's plot, and I'd partially agree with that, but this is still the case with other survival horror games as well.
the prison
church.
Perfect.
-MD-
Member
That seemed to be 80% of the complaints with the PAX demo. I honestly couldn't give a shit if my character isn't reacting to weird things happening every 2 seconds.
I really don't know where they are coming from.
I mean,what horror game does that?
Tricky I Shadow
Banned
Reminds me a lot of The Last of Us. Can't wait to see it at E3!
immortal-joe
Member
I'll keep an open mind all the way until release. While I wouldn't put too much weight on media outlets, I might normally raise an eyebrow when so much of the chatter is negative. However, Mikami is a developer who's earned the benefit of the doubt, especially in this genre.